A new organization plans to announce this week a German-style music festival in Allentown in May, the goal of which will be “the promotion and preservation of Pennsylvania's musical heritage,” the group says.

A second, larger festival offering different music is planned for fall, and more — such as a bluegrass festival — are in the works, organizers said.

The Pennsylvania Music Preservation Society will hold its inaugural Spring Fest from 2-8 p.m. May 17 on the grounds Maingate Nightclub on N. 17th Street, adjacent to Allentown Fairgrounds, according to the group’s website.

Headlining the initial event will be Grammy Award-nominated Alex Meixner, a well-known Allentown-based modern polka musician who has played at Bethlehem’s Musikfest and Oktoberfest. Other performers will be revealed later, the website says.

Tickets will be $8 in advance and $10 at the door. For an additional $10, patrons will get a seat next to the dance floor and stage with table service. Those seats are limited.

Ages 12 and younger will be admitted free, but anyone under age 21 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.

“Spring Fest is a German style festival similar to MaifestÖ, the German festival celebrating the arrival of spring,” the website says. “Bring the whole family and ‘polka on.’ “

Food and beverages will be sold, the website says. Vendors are being sought. The group is particularly interested in Lehigh Valley non-profit organizations that would like to sell food or crafts at the events.

Society President and founder Mark Merkel will hold a news conference todayThursday to reveal more details.

Merkel, owner of Creative Light & Sound Source, an entertainment services company based in Orlando, Fla., said the idea for Spring Fest came after he watched the wane of polka at Bethlehem’s Musikfest.

Musikfest started as a German-themed festival with focus on the music, but after more than 30 years has long since become a general music festival. Even ArtsQuest's newer German-themed Oktoberfest offers little polka.

“It’s declined every year,” Merkel said. Musikfest “used to have 30 [polka] bands, and I think last year they had seven. Plus all the private social clubs are going away. It was just one of those things — it seems everything is in decline

“We believe it’s a big part of the cultural heritage up here, and so we came up with something to do for it.”

The Pennsylvania Music Preservation Society is a non-profit corporation “devoted to the promotion and preservation of Pennsylvania's musical heritage and history that is all too quickly fading away and put on the back burner,” the website says.

Merkel said the society plans “quite a few annual events.” In addition to the festivals the group has plans for “dances and other events based around this music … with the hopes of bringing this important common bond to new generations to enjoy and keep alive for generations to come,” the website says.

Among the ideas is a summer bluegrass festival, but it likely will have to wait until 2016, Merkel said.

“We’ll try to get our feet wet a little bit at Maingate, then get beyond that and get bigger and bigger and bigger,” he said. The larger festivals will be planned as annual events, he said.

Meixner, who Pennsylvania Music Preservation Society’s website also lists as a director of Spring Fest, is a contemporary polka performer. In concert, he often performs hit songs as polkas. In addition to playing area festivals, he has played Sands Casino Resort’s Molten Lounge.

His album “Polka Freak Out” with Bubba Hernandez was nominated for the Best Polka Grammy in 2007.

The new festival makes for a crowded spring music festival season in Allentown. It would be just five days before the start of Allentown's Mayfair festival of the Arts, which for the third year also will be at Allentown Fairgrounds, and just two weeks after the new Allentown Jazz Fest, announced earlier this year.

Tickets are available on Meixner’s website, www.alexmeixner.com, or by sending a check or money order to PA Music Society Tickets, Box 9239, Allentown 18105-9239. For more information, call 610-756-7757.